The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 119 LIVE： Speaker for Hire – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

00:00:00.000 matt gates the biggest firebrand inside of the house of representatives you're not taking matt

00:00:08.420 gates off the board okay because matt gates is an american patriot and matt gates is an american

00:00:13.740 hero we will not continue to allow the uniparty to run this town without a fight i want to thank 1.00

00:00:20.900 you matt gates for holding the line matt gates is a courageous man if we had hundreds of matt gates

00:00:28.340 in dc the country turns around it's that simple he's so tough he's so strong he's smart and he

00:00:35.080 loves this country matt gates it is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you

00:00:42.900 we will save america it's choose your fighter time send in the firebrands 0.76

00:00:48.660 it's important just for the world to show that our democracy is working

00:00:58.240 that is thriving i think what matt gates and these seven nihilists did was a total disgrace

00:01:03.260 four percent of the conference overturned the will of 96 percent of the conference to

00:01:07.660 fire a speaker for what doing his job um if matt gates had his way we would be not only in a

00:01:13.780 defunctional congress right now but we'd be in a government shutdown so i think it's disgraceful

00:01:17.960 what these people did um but we have to move on we have to elect a new speaker we got to show that

00:01:22.900 we can walk and chew gum as a country at the same time govern um and give our allies what they need in

00:01:27.520 this very very pressing time for them a nihilist i think you meant nihilist that was former failed

00:01:37.000 house speaker paul ryan quite up in arms over the fact that we are making changes to washington dc

00:01:43.260 sometimes you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet and that's what we're doing right now i'm

00:01:48.520 going to bring you inside the latest discussions about the candidates the prospects how this is all

00:01:54.120 unfolding thanks for joining me we are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the rayburn

00:01:59.440 house office building here in the capitol complex in washington dc and i'm going to start our

00:02:04.840 discussion uh just by totally disclaiming that what you have seen from me in vacating mccarthy

00:02:10.480 and working to get the best conservative in position to win uh is not a consequence of my own desire

00:02:17.360 to have house leadership or to move up or to get a new title or the new corner office and while some

00:02:24.220 online have been suggesting that maybe i should be the candidate for speaker i can assure you that that

00:02:29.480 is not the direction this is going go ahead and put up the tweet eric spracklin puts says i've said

00:02:35.760 it before and i'll say it again matt gates for house speaker so there are a few problems with that

00:02:41.440 first uh by virtue of removing mccarthy it does create some bad will among the people who were

00:02:48.700 his allies and also his political benefactors the way mccarthy accumulated power was by raising

00:02:56.180 hundreds of millions of dollars in special interest money and then redistributing that money to people in

00:03:02.140 exchange for loyalty and while that doesn't create a durable political structure as we saw it certainly can

00:03:09.700 create resentment if you take away the goose that's laying the golden eggs for some of these folks even

00:03:15.040 if that money is ill gotten from the standards that i hold that we shouldn't be raising money from

00:03:20.120 lobbyists and PACs and special interests who want to influence the decisions here in washington so that

00:03:26.900 the needs of the american people are subjugated and for holding that viewpoint i have not gained a ton of

00:03:33.580 friends in this town the la times observing matt gates is widely hated in congress doesn't bother me

00:03:40.960 too much he was able to oust kevin mccarthy anyway both of those things may very well be true so i think

00:03:47.660 we can um very likely dispense with the notion that i have a candidacy or a prospect to be speaker of the

00:03:54.100 house so sorry to eric uh who put out that very kind tweet but i think that also says something about

00:04:00.360 the makeup of the republican conference we need more america first congressmen we have far too many

00:04:07.720 people here that are vestiges of a republican party of yesteryear that does not reflect the dynamism and

00:04:14.960 energy and realignment that a lot of our most enthusiastic activists and supporters reflect in how they

00:04:23.580 approach politics how they think about a lot of these things in a lot of ways the republican conference

00:04:28.940 here in washington dc in the house of representatives is not a leading indicator of where the republican

00:04:34.920 party is it's a lagging indicator the leading indicator is really the sentiment that we draw from

00:04:40.120 folks whether they're commenting right now on our live stream engaging with us on the phone in the mail

00:04:46.120 digitally and the american people want to see washington change that is coming through representatives are

00:04:54.360 hearing that message as we engage in this contest for speaker but for people who hold views like me

00:05:00.920 to have a greater say in washington dc it is not ambition that is the essential ingredient it is a

00:05:07.980 constituency of the membership and on any given day sometimes it's four five eight twenty twenty five

00:05:13.980 thirty you know we've finally gotten a majority of the majority to oppose u.s involvement in the war in

00:05:20.860 ukraine but that took some time again congress has the lagging indicator not the leading indicator and

00:05:27.080 so mark this as a moment where we really dedicate ourselves to the concept of having more america first

00:05:35.020 principles and values and people here in the united states congress working on the stuff that's

00:05:40.460 important to the american people uh there is uh there is a lot of enthusiasm for donald trump as a

00:05:47.340 potential speaker candidate so as many of you will remember i first nominated president trump for

00:05:53.600 speaker of the house back in january i'll give you a listen to that clip what purpose does the gentleman

00:06:00.280 from florida rise it's a place in name and nomination for the position of speaker of the house

00:06:04.320 the gentleman is recognized my friends when donald trump was president taxes were cut regulations were

00:06:12.920 slashed energy was abundant wages were rising capital was returning from overseas to fund the dreams and

00:06:21.320 ambitions of our fellow americans and the economy was roaring and so i nominate president trump because we

00:06:28.400 must make our country great again and he can start by making the house of representatives great again

00:06:33.040 so i gave that nominating speech and i can't say that the movement took off

00:06:39.660 president trump only got a very small handful of votes i think you know me and well it's mostly me

00:06:45.420 that was voting for president trump uh in those ballots and in those contests uh there have been

00:06:49.960 a few other of my colleagues troy nels notably greg steuby have said that they are eager to vote for

00:06:54.620 donald trump for speaker of the house i was with president trump last night in palm beach we talked about

00:07:00.340 this i can tell you straight from the horse's mouth president trump does not want the job he is laser

00:07:06.900 focused on 1600 pennsylvania avenue because he believes if we do not hold the white house

00:07:12.360 no matter which party controls the congress no matter who is the presiding officer we will not be able to

00:07:19.000 take the country back we will not be able to make the changes at the border in the economy and really in

00:07:24.040 just how our administrative agencies operate with congress alone we have to have the executive so he is

00:07:30.400 putting his time to best use toward that objective the only circumstance in which i think he ever

00:07:36.640 considered it or would consider it if there was an extremely short interim basis where he could come in

00:07:42.120 put us on the right track set a vision and an agenda uh i don't think that's the direction this is going

00:07:48.060 but uh i think that the president's focus is appropriately on uh the article two powers reflected

00:07:56.400 in the presidency president trump also endorsed congressman jim jordan for the position of speaker

00:08:01.140 of the house we showed you that in our last episode and we've got folks for a comment from

00:08:07.560 hello america news on the live stream devin nunez for speaker i would totally vote for devin nunez for

00:08:14.000 speaker um but let's get to jim jordan jim jordan uh a lot of enthusiasm for him in the base

00:08:20.160 you will recall back in january this was another play that i attempted to run i tried to nominate

00:08:27.160 jim jordan i believe in jim jordan here was my speech in january making the case for jordan for speaker

00:08:33.340 play the clip well sometimes we have to do jobs that we don't really want to do and sometimes we

00:08:41.480 have to do jobs that we are called to do and so my colleagues i rise to nominate the most talented

00:08:49.140 hardest working member of the republican conference who just gave a speech with more

00:08:55.000 vision than we have ever heard from the alternative i'm nominating jim jordan

00:08:58.780 i gave that speech right after jim jordan had nominated kevin mccarthy i was not successful

00:09:06.920 at getting jim jordan to vote for himself though i got a number of other members enthusiastic about

00:09:11.140 his candidacy then and i think there are people still pretty psyched about him to this day that said

00:09:16.460 yesterday we had a vote in the republican conference between steve scalise and jim jordan jim jordan lost

00:09:22.700 that vote by seven votes now we've heard a lot from a lot of people about the nature of that vote that

00:09:28.560 it was behind closed doors that it was anonymous people's names didn't necessarily have to append

00:09:33.320 to the vote that they were casting a very a very different thing than you saw back in january on the

00:09:40.160 floor with kevin mccarthy and that you'll see again with whoever we elect for speaker so why is that

00:09:45.120 happening a lot of people concerned about that methodology when i uh knew that the motion of

00:09:52.660 vacate was going to be successful based on the roll call votes vis-a-vis speaker mccarthy it was my

00:09:57.940 belief that immediately right then and there without taking a week off for everybody to go have a good

00:10:03.380 cry without retreating to our respective conferences i thought right then and there we should have begun

00:10:08.940 with nominating speeches and votes and you know what it would have been messy and it would have taken a

00:10:14.240 while but it probably would have been done by now instead they wanted to reschool the fish reconstitute

00:10:21.580 the caucuses and what i have to tell you is that decision is not one that i got to make not one even

00:10:27.920 that the majority of the body got to make that decision rested with the pro tem and the pro tem alone now

00:10:34.220 this is not an elected position not even a position you can vacate it was a position that was appointed by

00:10:40.700 the outgoing speaker this is a weird quirk of how the parliamentary process works the outgoing speaker

00:10:48.140 has a list of who would serve in the in the event of their incapacity in this case by vote but

00:10:53.740 there could be incapacity for all other reasons and the person designated was patrick mchenry

00:10:58.720 he made the decision to send everybody home for a week that was a bad decision and then the decision of

00:11:04.840 the conference chair elise stefanik in coordination with patrick mchenry is to engage the process that

00:11:09.600 usually we do at the beginning of the year where people cast their votes then when someone has

00:11:14.180 received 50 plus one they're officially the designated candidate of the party and we move to the floor

00:11:20.300 as a consequence of that so jordan loses and then the question is is jordan going to mount a campaign

00:11:27.420 on the floor similar to what we saw with mccarthy back in january or is he going to back scalise and we've

00:11:35.180 got some reporting on that i want to share with you first from jake sherman at punch bowl jake sherman

00:11:40.640 tweets news jim jordan just offered to nominate scalise on the house floor jordan getting behind

00:11:47.300 scalise that reporting confirmed by olivia beavers at politico olivia tweeting rep jordan plans to vote

00:11:54.500 for scalise as speaker on the floor and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same per source with direct

00:12:00.660 knowledge one thing that i have experience in is being more for jim jordan than jim jordan was for

00:12:09.020 jim jordan and one thing i've learned is that if it is challenging at times to get jim jordan over the

00:12:17.380 line if jim is not for jim i say that to you because i voted for jim jordan in that conference i did not vote

00:12:24.720 for steve scalise jim was my preferred candidate and while both jim jordan and steve scalise represent

00:12:31.520 an upgrade over kevin mccarthy i do believe jim would have been the better choice now jordan is

00:12:37.640 nominating scalise and backing scalise and working to whip votes for scalise so that brings us to scalise

00:12:43.160 let's talk about his his candidacy and and who can think about steve scalise without remembering

00:12:49.560 uh the tragic moment where he was shot on a baseball field by a radicalized bernie sanders 0.99

00:12:55.660 supporter play that clip washington correspondence that the president and the vice president have now

00:13:03.320 been informed of what have happened and you can see here what looks like that looks like a member

00:13:10.320 of congress that i recognize but we'll wait for confirmation we do have it nor we've told that

00:13:14.940 the congressman who was shot in the hip has been identified as steve scalise he is the republican

00:13:20.160 house majority whip and as you can see there it appears that they are uh medevac-ing him the

00:13:27.620 alexandria fire department and first responders are medevac-ing him to get treatment and the shooting

00:13:34.680 happened in the dugout of the baseball field and as of this time we do not know even though we assume

00:13:40.140 he's in custody the name of the shooter and his motive or intent

00:13:43.820 we are back live pat on facebook giving me the comment that jordan is not trusted because jordan

00:13:52.500 did not vote to vacate mccarthy let me level with you politically eight republicans voted with me

00:13:59.080 including my own vote to vacate mccarthy none of those people have any chance of being elected speaker 0.54

00:14:05.520 of the house this term the bad blood with the other republicans not all of them but a sufficient

00:14:11.560 number of them would preclude uh myself andy biggs bob good uh tim birchett nancy mace uh matt

00:14:19.980 rosendale uh eli crane from really being considered speakers of the house even though several people

00:14:25.380 on that list would probably make a pretty good speaker of the house that is a political reality so

00:14:29.560 that's why um that would probably be a path that would not be productive for us to pursue i also

00:14:35.800 want to talk about the the bad blood between scalise and mccarthy that seems to have impacted this race

00:14:44.020 because while steve scalise won the original caucus vote by seven votes he does not to have 217 votes right

00:14:51.220 now he may get there he may not he does not have 217 votes right now and that is the magic number

00:14:57.380 it's not 218 because uh there's a vacancy because chris stewart of utah retired and the special

00:15:03.380 election hasn't filled that seat so that's the important math um but there are a few areas that

00:15:08.200 really contributed to the bad blood between mccarthy and scalise that may be uh affecting

00:15:13.340 scalise's vote talent or tally right now first is the debt limit when kevin mccarthy went to negotiate

00:15:19.400 the debt limit with the white house typically that negotiating team would be led by or at least

00:15:25.980 heavily informed by whoever the majority leader is the number two in the house but instead of

00:15:30.980 involving steve scalise in the debt limit deal which i i assume almost everybody watching this

00:15:37.240 program and getting this report would be against i was viscerally against that deal steve had no role

00:15:43.180 in negotiating it he was cut out and it really he was replaced by louisiana congressman garrett graves

00:15:48.820 and north carolina congressman patrick mckenry who's now the pro tem uh the second thing that

00:15:54.020 contributed to this i think bad blood between mccarthy and scalise was the way that mccarthy

00:16:00.720 negotiated the continuing resolution scalise was cut out of that and then finally we heard reports of

00:16:07.100 a secret side deal between mccarthy and the white house on ukraine and scalise was cut out of that as

00:16:14.420 well and so this may be creating a rub where some of the remnants of mccarthy world are simply unwilling 1.00

00:16:21.940 to deliver their votes to scalise because they know of the drama or tension that existed between

00:16:28.200 mccarthy and scalise during a lot of the time when they were both members of the leadership team

00:16:32.740 now on ukraine specifically i've gotten a lot of comments about this because i do not support more

00:16:38.960 funding for the war in ukraine i was one of i think three four members who from the beginning has

00:16:45.740 opposed this and both jordan and scalise were asked their perspectives on ukraine and they gave the

00:16:51.020 exact same answer even though they have a very different voting record and i align with jordan's

00:16:55.400 votes of course uh they both said that the white house hadn't produced a plan that a majority of

00:17:00.320 republicans were against continuing to fund this and they were both pretty negative on it now

00:17:05.500 circumstances change got to evaluate people not just by what they say but how they vote that's how all

00:17:10.760 of us get evaluated but i wanted to bring you to that point because how people are thinking about

00:17:15.980 ukraine is informing a lot about how folks think about the direction of the house and how it should

00:17:20.880 be led and there are equally strong you know passions on both sides of that i mean we have some members who

00:17:27.520 will not vote for somebody that doesn't want to have an america last policy and send every last dollar

00:17:31.620 to ukraine and there are some of us who have a real hard time ever pulling the lever for someone who

00:17:36.740 thinks that this is going to be america's new costly forever war with high risk of escalation accident

00:17:42.360 and you know sleepwalking us into world war three um that's ukraine so now we're in a circumstance we

00:17:49.020 just got out of a meeting with the republican conference where scalise asked those who opposed him to come

00:17:55.920 forward share their concerns he was talking through those concerns with them and i didn't see a lot of votes

00:18:02.120 move during that particular meeting and so you know then the question becomes what happens if

00:18:08.260 neither one of these guys can get the votes what happens if some of the jordan people even if jordan

00:18:12.700 even though jordan uh apparently has said he's going to nominate scalise is whipping votes for scalise

00:18:17.740 even though that's happening there may be jordan people that don't want to vote for scalise

00:18:21.220 there may be scalise people that don't want to vote for jordan if that were to come to an impasse

00:18:26.900 and i hope it would i would actually hope that it wouldn't come to an impasse you could see a move

00:18:33.660 by the current number three in the house the whip tom emmer of minnesota and uh he's not a candidate

00:18:43.560 yet but if things were to dissolve with the two people that were running with the one person that

00:18:49.860 was designated it would be my expectation that tom emmer would mount a campaign alongside perhaps kevin

00:18:56.260 hearn a congressman from oklahoma who currently leads the republican study committee which is the

00:19:00.820 largest republican caucus in the united states conference so congress so we've got the speakers

00:19:06.800 race underneath that if scalise is ultimately elected speaker he will vacate the position of

00:19:11.720 majority leader several people have expressed an interest in that including my friend and florida

00:19:16.880 colleague byron donalds and uh if oh emmer were to run for that it could even create a vacancy for

00:19:24.260 whip so a lot of moving parts this is part of the politics that really drives washington if you

00:19:29.980 watch the uh the television show house of cards what i think they get right in that dramatization of all

00:19:37.680 this is how much time and energy and effort and focus members of congress put into these leadership

00:19:42.840 elections it really is the alpha and omega for some of them and as i told you at the top of the program

00:19:48.000 not for me throughout all of these personalities and all these zero-sum machinations of power

00:19:53.960 the most important thing to me is that we put downward pressure on spending and we constrain

00:20:01.500 the biden government from doing the grave harm that they are doing to the american people right now

00:20:06.840 it's not about personalities it's about the plan and we cannot continue to underwrite joe biden's debt

00:20:12.760 advance his spending that is crushing people through inflation all alongside the nancy pelosi mitch

00:20:19.800 mcconnell negotiated policies that i want to rip out of united states federal code and the only way to

00:20:26.740 do that is single subject spending bills and i'm fighting real hard for that no matter who ends up in

00:20:32.240 what leadership position but my commitment to you is i'll keep you informed i'll keep you up to date

00:20:36.220 i'll let you know you deserve to know not just what my perspective is again i went in and voted for

00:20:41.480 jordan some folks don't like that on the lines live stream some folks really do like that but what you

00:20:47.100 deserve to know is how the case is being made and what it means for you and the power centers here in

00:20:54.780 washington if certain coalitions advance or dissolve or able to constitute a functioning majority in the

00:21:02.520 united states house of representatives been a whole lot of whining about oh well you know mccarthy's

00:21:08.280 gone oh the house is in chaos we don't have a functioning legislative branch of government

00:21:14.220 spare me the breathless pearl clutching we had been failing for nine months under kevin mccarthy

00:21:21.160 no budget no release of the january 6 tapes no subpoena to hunter biden we didn't have a functioning

00:21:27.720 house of representatives when we did have a speaker so it is worth it to rip off the band-aid to get

00:21:33.620 this right and to put ourselves in a position where we have a leader who can inspire and who the

00:21:40.380 republicans in our conference can trust and i know that means we got republicans from east coast west

00:21:45.400 coast rural urban suburban everything in between but i i know that for us to be able to drive action

00:21:53.860 we have got to have more boldness in the speaker and we've got to surround them with a team that is

00:22:00.020 willing to go to battle against the biden administration and the chuck schumer led senate i also

00:22:06.080 want to update you on some important work that's going on at the committee level in the congress just

00:22:11.980 today and keep in mind even though there is this leadership drama that overlays the the beltway

00:22:18.980 there's also a lot of committee work going on to see that we're doing what the american people need

00:22:24.820 on oversight on legislation and one of the things that you should all be worried about is the level

00:22:31.180 of crime in dc i used to love it when in 2017 2018 i'd learn that northwest floridians would come to

00:22:39.760 our nation's capital and i'd be so eager to set them up oh you got to go to the washington monument and

00:22:45.160 the jefferson memorial and got to go to the spy museum and park the car walk around use public

00:22:50.860 transportation and in the years that have passed our subway system has become dangerous our beautiful

00:22:57.740 monuments have become camping grounds for the homeless and you know i'm not blaming the homeless

00:23:04.800 but you can't have a situation where our fellow americans cannot enjoy our nation's monuments and our

00:23:10.580 history and our national story because people are deciding to turn it into their residence

00:23:14.860 that is not okay for the rest of us and most notably crime we are seeing crime levels just

00:23:23.440 absolutely skyrocket in our nation's capital we had a hearing on it in the house judiciary committee

00:23:28.160 and this was some of the content that we reviewed play the clip

00:23:32.080 2023 is going to have to be one of the deadliest dc has seen in decades

00:23:38.440 there have now been 200 homicides so far this year in the district

00:23:43.860 the district is in a state of emergency due to the high crime rate so far in 2023 12 children have

00:23:51.440 been shot and killed the murder rate in the district of columbia is skyrocketing crime on dc public transit

00:23:57.920 has jumped to horrific rate all crime up 25 percent murder up 24 percent motor vehicle theft up 107 percent

00:24:05.920 a violent weekend unfolding in the district 2023 is now the third year in a row where dc has reached 200

00:24:12.780 homicides police are investigating a series of shootings that includes a mass shooting 16 year old

00:24:18.120 shot and killed and then bullets went flying into two classrooms eight people shot and killed in the

00:24:23.960 district in just 70 the triple shooting in shaw two women are dead and a teenage girl is in the

00:24:29.760 hospital some neighborhoods have seen homicides increase 280 the vast majority of them are just fine

00:24:37.280 we have to do better and there are federal equities and i want to make sure that when all of you come

00:24:46.260 here to be with us that you can be safe with your families and that you can be proud of your country and

00:24:51.640 your capital and our great national story i've got to say one of the benefits of this episode everyone

00:24:57.220 is chiming in on the live stream with their favorite um dark horse off the wall candidates for speaker we

00:25:03.260 are devin nunez earlier cash patel a lot of love for cash patel on the rumble thread former new york

00:25:09.460 congressman and new york gubernatorial candidate lee zeldin getting some love i saw on youtube someone

00:25:16.000 mentioned trey gowdy i would definitely be opposed to trey gowdy a speaker i thought that

00:25:21.460 he was uh he was all hat no cattle when it came to oversight and accountability and and wannimal

00:25:27.520 says just put me in charge so i don't know maybe you think you can be speaker and you're on the live

00:25:34.500 stream either way i'll keep you posted make sure you're subscribed do us a favor give us five stars

00:25:39.940 if you're listening on apple or on spotify that gives us the best opportunity to be able to share

00:25:45.540 this content keep people engaged and informed if there is any way my efforts to change this town

00:25:51.440 will be successful is because people like you will share this content engage our fellow americans and

00:25:57.120 then take action to demand better i'll keep you updated make sure you're subscribed roll the credits

00:26:02.820 new york

00:26:27.660 You

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - October 12, 2023

Episode 119 LIVE： Speaker for Hire – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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